Numerous types of roof assemblies are employed for pre-engineered buildings that are designed to provide adequate load and weather-element resistance. Typically, the favored solutions involve mating sheet metal structural components that are intentionally designed to displace with respect to each other to compensate for large loads imparted to the roof assembly that otherwise, without displacement, would plastically deform the sheet metal components.
A popular type of roof is a standing seam roof in which adjacent corrugated panel members are joined together edge-wise by interconnecting and then engaging them together to form an upright standing seam. The adjacent panels forming the standing seam are fixed together so that they do not displace with respect to each other, cooperatively creating a web having considerable diaphragm strength that can be employed to position and integrate with the underlying support structure. Preferably, the web at least to some extent is resiliently connected to the underlying support structure so that the web is intentionally displaceable (it “floats”) to compensate for loads imparted to the roof such as wind, precipitation, and thermal loading. Without a robust ability to float in a pre-engineered way, the forces from repeated loadings can, over time, weaken and even separate the sheet metal connections, resulting in unsightly distortion, leaks, and even potential catastrophic pulling away of the roof from the underlying support structures.
Improvements are needed to the floating assemblies that connect the web of panels to the underlying support structures. It is to that need that embodiments of this technology are directed.